The Time I was really Down to Earth

The Government of India had initiated to build an artificial forest which was named “Janki Van” and we had to plant saplings in that area. We started our journey at 7 in the morning and left the city by school bus. We reached the place of plantation at around 10.30 AM and started to work after a short tour of the whole project.  

It was the first time I was planting saplings and found that it is not as simple as it seems. Planting saplings was quite difficult and I had to get out of my comfort zone to do so. I thought it would be really fun and easy, but no it wasn’t. We had to dig in some places and sow the plant there. We also had to carry the plants from one place to another which was a bit tiring. As I did this activity first time in my life, it was completely uncomfortable for me to plant the saplings. Putting all dirty, wet, soiled saplings under the ground and then cover it with sand was quite unhygienic and awkward for me.

I thought this activity might be boring however it wasn’t. I quite enjoyed it. The reason behind my participation in this activity was to expose myself to a different subject; which was the plantation. My aim of going to the trip was to gain knowledge the way farmers work, what are the processes they use to plant the saplings, do they use pesticides or chemical fertilizers etc. This helped me to explore an agricultural aspect. I learned many things about myself after doing this activity including my strengths and weakness and where I need to improve. The strength I noticed about me was endurance; I worked for 5 hours without much tiredness. As I mentioned earlier,for  this activity i had to step out of my comfort zone which  became a great weakness of mine while doing the activity. However, I felt good, after doing this activity I would like to be more open-minded towards different things and conditions.

Without collaboration, we could not do this activity. Our coordination helped us to plant nearly 100 plants, It was a great pleasure after doing so. I was the person who had never planted one tree in my whole life and suddenly planting these many trees was an honor itself. So therefore YES, this was a successful activity.